One 77-year-old’s search for the truth: 9/11, election fraud, illegal wars, Wall Street criminality, a stolen nuke, the neocon wars, control of the U.S. government by global corporations, the unjustified assault on Social Security, media complicity, and the "Great Recession" about to become the second Great Depression. "The most important truths are hidden from us by the powerful few who strive to steal the American dream by keeping We the People in the dark."

Sunday, October 04, 2015

Paul Craig Roberts' introduction: "In his guest column Eric Zuesse reports that Washington’s world exploitation is encountering opposition. An Iraqi parliamentarian tells Washington “to give up its hypocrisy.” France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Trade rejects Washington’s Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership as a device for placing US corporations in control of France and outside of the reach of the laws of France. TTIP, the minister correctly declares, eliminates the sovereignty of the participating countries." http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-western-alliance-is-crumbling-eu-is-abandoning-u-s-on-overthrowing-assad/5479566

The Western Alliance Is Crumbling: EU Is Abandoning U.S. on Overthrowing Assad

The pressure on the Syrian regime, which is fighting
ISIS, must be lifted. They should not try to strengthen the feeble Free
Syrian Army [FSA]. There is no FSA. There is ISIS in Syria and Iraq. You
cannot fight ISIS in Iraq, yet support it in Syria. There is one war
and one enemy. The U.S. should give up its hypocrisy. People are not
brainless.

The European publics oppose America’s bombings, which have poured
these refugees from American bombing, into Europe. European leaders are
starting to separate from alliance with the United States.

U.S. Senator John McCain, who, as a fanatical Vietnam-war
bomber-pilot, has always hated Russia even more than does U.S. President
Barack Obama (who got his hatred from other sources), is egging Obama on to war against Russia in Syria; he says, “We need to have a no-fly zone,”
where we prohibit Russia’s planes from bombing areas that are
controlled by American-supported jihadists (which the U.S. government
still euphemistically calls “the Free Syrian Army”). Actually, as Agence
France Press had reported on 12 September 2014,“Syrian
rebels and jihadists from the Islamic State have agreed a
non-aggression pact for the first time in a suburb of the capital
Damascus, a monitoring group said on Friday.” ISIS and FSA had
already been close; but now they were and are essentially
one-and-the-same; it’s just not been reported in the U.S. press. The
U.S. Government’s distinctions are thus entirely specious; Obama’s top
goal in Syria is clearly to replace Russia’s ally, Assad, not
to defeat the Islamic State (and the little that still remains of FSA).
McCain just wants Obama to go all the way, to nuclear war against
Russia, to overthrow Assad. (Perhaps he thinks Obama will ‘chicken out,’
and McCain will then criticize Obama for ‘abandoning the people of
Syria,’ who have benefited so much from America’s bombing that they’ve
been fleeing Syria by the millions. McCain and other Republicans are so
“pro-life” — for zygotes anyway. When the Iraqi parliamentarian said,
“People aren’t brainless,” he wasn’t referring to people like that.)

On October 1st, NPR presented McCain saying,
“I can absolutely confirm to you that they [Russian air strikes] were
strikes against our Free Syrian Army or groups that have been armed and
trained by the CIA because we have communications with people there.”
(Oh, a few of them still exist, even after the’ve been absorbed into the
Holy-War group? And the CIA is still funding them? Really? Wow!)

U.S. pretends that overthrowing Assad would be for ‘democracy.’ But
when the Qatari regime, which funds al-Nusra, hired a polling firm in
2012 to survey Syrians, the finding was that 55% of Syrians wanted him to remain as President. Then, as I reported on 18 September 2015, “Polls Show Syrians Overwhelmingly Blame U.S. for ISIS,”
and those recent polls were from a British firm that has ties to
Gallup. No question was asked then about whether Assad should stay; but,
clearly, support for him had strengthened considerably between 2012 and
2015, as the Syrian people now see with greater clarity than they
possibly could have before, that the U.S. regime is an enemy, not a
friend, to them. Obama’s, and the Republicans’, pretenses to favor
democracy are blatantly fraudulent.

That’s hardly the only ‘legacy’ issue for Obama — his war against
Russia, via overthrowing Gaddafi, then Yanukovych, and his still trying
to overthrow Assad — which is now forcing the break-up of the Western
Alliance, over the resulting refugee-crisis. An even bigger such
conflict within the Alliance concerns Obama’s proposed treaty with
European states, the TTIP, which would give international corporations
rights to sue national governments in non-appealable global private
arbitration panels, the dictates from which will stand above any
member-nation’s laws. Elected government officials will have no control
over them. This supra-national mega-corporate effort by Obama is also
part of his similar effort in his proposed TPP treaty with Asian
nations, both of which are additionally aimed to isolate from
international trade not just Russia, but China, so as to leave America’s
large international corporations controlling virtually the entire
world.

As things now stand regarding these ‘trade’ deals, Obama will either
need to eliminate some of his demands, or else the European Commission
won’t be able to muster enough of its members to support Obama’s
proposed treaty with the EU, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership). Also, some key European nations might reject
Obama’s proposed treaty on regulations regarding financial and other
services: TISA (Trade In Services Agreement). All three of Obama’s
proposed ‘trade’ deals, including the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership)
between the U.S. and Asian countries, are the actual culmination of
Obama’s Presidency, and they’re all about far more than just trade and
economics. The main proposed deal with Europe might now be dead.

On September 27th, France’s newspaper SouthWest featured an exclusive interview
with Matthias Fekl, France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, in
which he said that “France is considering all options, including
outright termination of negotiations” on the TTIP. He explained that,
ever since the negotiations began in 2013, “These negotiations have been
and are being conducted in a total lack of transparency,” and that
France has, as of yet, received “no serious offer from the Americans.”

The reasons for this stunning public rejection had probably
already been accurately listed more than a year ago. After all, France
has, throughout all of the negotiations, received “no serious offer from
the Americans”; not now, and not back at the start of the negotiations
in 2013. The U.S. has been steadfast. Jean Arthuis, a member of the European Parliament, and formerly France’s Minister of Economy and Finance, headlined in Le Figaro, on 10 April 2014, “7 good reasons to oppose the transatlantic treaty”.
There is no indication that the situation has changed since then, as
regards the basic demands that President Obama is making. Arthuis said
at that time:

First, I am opposed to
private arbitration of disputes between States and businesses. [It would
place corporate arbitrators above any nation’s laws and enable them to
make unappealable decisions whenever a corporation sues a nation for
alleged damages for alleged violations of its rights by that nation of
the trade-treaty.] Such a procedure is strictly contrary to the idea
that I have of the sovereignty of States. …

Secondly, I am opposed to any
questioning of the European system of appellations of origin. Tomorrow,
according to the US proposal, there would be a non-binding register, and
only for wines and spirits. Such a reform would kill many European
local products, whose value is based on their certified origin.

Thirdly, I am opposed to the signing of
an agreement with a power that legalizes widespread and systematic
spying on my fellow European citizens and European businesses. Edward
Snowden’s revelations are instructive in this regard. As long as the
agreement does not protect the personal data of European and US
citizens, it cannot be signed.

Fourth, the United States proposes a
transatlantic common financial space, but they adamantly refuse a common
regulation of finance, and they refuse to abolish systematic
discrimination by the US financial markets against European financial
services. They want to have their cake and eat it too: I object to the
idea of a common area without common rules, and I reject commercial
discrimination.

Fifth, I object to the questioning of
European health protections. Washington must understand once and for all
that notwithstanding its insistence, we do not want our plates or
animals treated with growth hormones nor products derived from GMOs, or
chemical decontamination of meat, or of genetically modified seeds or
non-therapeutic antibiotics in animal feed.

Sixth, I object to the signing of an
agreement if it does not include the end of the US monetary dumping.
Since the abolition of the gold convertibility of the dollar and the
transition to the system of floating exchange rates, the dollar is both
American national currency and the main unit for exchange reserves in
the world. The Federal Reserve then continually practices monetary
dumping, by influencing the amount of dollars available to facilitate
exports from the United States. China proposes to eliminate this unfair
advantage by making “special drawing rights” of the IMF the new global
reference currency. But as things now stand, America’s monetary weapon
has the same effect as customs duties against every other nation. [And
he will not sign unless it’s removed.]

Seventh, beyond the audiovisual sector
alone, which is the current standard of government that serves as a
loincloth to its cowardice on all other European interests in these
negotiations, I want all the cultural exceptions prohibited. In
particular, it is unacceptable to allow the emerging digital services in
Europe to be swept up by US giants such as Google, Amazon or Netflix.
They’re giant absolute masters in tax optimization, which make Europe a
“digital colony.”President Obama’s negotiator is his close personal friend, Michael Froman, a man who is even trying
to force Europe to reduce its fuel standards against global warming and
whose back-room actions run exactly contrary to Obama’s public
rhetoric. Froman and Obama have been buddies since they worked together as editors on Harvard Law Review. He knows what Obama’s real goals are. Also: “Froman introduced Mr. Obama to Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary,”
who had brought into the Clinton Administration Timothy Geithner and
Larry Summers, and had championed (along with them) the ending of the
regulations on banks that the previous Democratic President, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, had put into place. (President Bill Clinton signed
that legislation just as he left office, and this enabled the long
process to occur with MBS securities and with financial derivatives,
which culminated with the 2008 crash, and this same legislation also
enabled the mega-banks to get bailed out by U.S. taxpayers for their
crash — on exactly the basis that FDR had outlawed.)

Froman has always been a pro-mega-corporate, pro-mega-bank champion,
who favors only regulations which benefit America’s super-rich, no
regulations which benefit the public. Froman’s introducing the Wall
Street king Robert Rubin to the then-Senator Obama was crucial to
Obama’s becoming enabled to win the U.S. Presidency; Robert Rubin’s
contacts among the super-rich were essential in order for that — Obama’s
getting a real chance to win the Presidency — to happen. It enabled
Obama to compete effectively against Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, he
wouldn’t have been able to do that. His winning Robert Rubin’s support
was crucial to his becoming President.

The chances, that President Obama will now be able to get the support
from any entity but the U.S. Congress for his proposed TTIP treaty with
Europe, are reducing by the day. Europe seems to be less corrupt than
is the United States, after all.

The only independent economic analysis that has been done of the proposed TTIP
finds that the only beneficiaries from it will be large international
corporations, especially ones that are based in the United States.
Workers, consumers, and everybody else, will lose from it, if it passes
into law. Apparently, enough European officials care about that, so as
to be able to block the deal. Or else: Obama will cede on all seven of
the grounds for Europe’s saying no. At this late date, that seems
extremely unlikely.

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About Me

B.S. in Physics, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1960 Ph.D. in Physics, Brown University, 1966. Fellow, American Physical
Society. Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Fellow, American Ceramic Society. Member, Geological Society of America, Research Physicist at Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Washington, DC,
1967-2001. Fulbright-García Robles Fellow at Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, 1997. Invited Professor of Research at Universités
de Paris-6 & 7, Lyon-1, et St-Etienne (France) and Tokyo Institute
of Technology, 2000-2004. Adjunct Professor of Materials Science and
Engineering, University of Arizona, 2004-2005. Consultancy: impactGlass
research international, 2005-present.
Winner, one national and two international research awards and honored
by Brown University with a "Distinguished Graduate School Alumnus
Award." Author, 198 papers in peer-reviewed journals and books, Principal Author of 114 of these.